STAR OF 7 BOND FILMS
LONDON — Roger Moore, the suavely insouciant star of seven James Bond films, has died in Switzerland. He was 89.
The British actor died Tuesday after a short battle with cancer, according to a family statement posted on Mr. Moore’s official Twitter account.
“We know our own love and admiration will be magnified many times over, across the world, by people who knew him for his films, his television shows and his passionate work for UNICEF, which he considered to be his greatest achievement,” the statement said.
While he never eclipsed Sean Connery in the public’s eye as the definitive James Bond, Mr. Moore did play the role of secret agent 007 in just as many films as Connery did, and he managed to do so while “finding a joke in every situation,” according to film critic Rex Reed.
The actor, who came to the role in 1973 after Connery tired of it, had already enjoyed a long career in films and television, albeit with mixed success.
He was remembered warmly by fans of the popular U. S. 1950s- 60s TV series “Maverick” as Beauregarde Maverick, the English cousin of theWildWest’s Maverick brothers, Bret and Bart. He also starred in the 1959 U. S. series “The Alaskans.”
In England, he had a longrunning TV hit with “The Saint,” playing Simon Templar, the enigmatic action hero who helps put wealthy crooks in jail while absconding with their fortunes. By the time the series, which also aired in the United States, ended in 1969, his partnership with its producers had made him awealthyman.
Such success followed a Time magazine review of one of his earliest films, 1956’ s “Diane,” in which his performance opposite Lana Turner was dismissed as that of “a lump of English roast beef.”
In the 1970s, film critic Vincent Canby would dismiss Mr. Moore’s acting abilities as having “reduced all human emotions to a series of variations on one gesture, the raising of the right eyebrow.”
Born in London, the only child of a policeman, Mr. Moore had studied painting before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He played a few small roles in theater and films before his mandatory army duty, then moved to Hollywood in the 1950s. He appeared opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 1954’ s “The Last Time I Saw Paris” and with Eleanor Parker in “Interrupted Melody” the following year.
In 1970, he became managing director for European production for Faberge’s Brut Productions. With the company, he co- starred with Tony Curtis in “The Persuaders!” for British television and was involved in producing “A Touch of Class,” which won a best- actress Oscar for Glenda Jackson.
Three years later, he made his first Bond film, “Live and Let Die.”
He would make six more, “The Man With the Golden Gun,” “The Spy Who Loved Me,” “Octopussy,” “Moonraker,” “For Your Eyes Only and “A View to a Kill” over the next 12 years. And while the Bond of the Ian Fleming novels that the films were based on was generally described as being in his 30s, Mr. Moore would stay with the role until he was 57.
His post- Bond films included such forgettable efforts as “The Quest” with Jean- Claude Van Damme and “Spice World” with the Spice Girls.
Mr. Moore was divorced three times, from skater Doorn Van Steyn in 1953, English singer Dorothy Squires in 1969 and Italian actress Luisa Mattioli, the mother of his children Deborah, Geoffrey and Christian, in 2000.
He married a fourth time, in 2002, to Swedish socialite Kristina Tholstrup.
RogerMoore seemed likemore of a lover than a fighter as James Bond, but on his watch, 007 was always a gentleman.
Taking over the role from Sean Connery, Moore, who died Tuesday at age 89, played the consummate British secret agent in seven films in the 1970s and ’ 80s before handing the keys to the franchise to Timothy Dalton. For the earliest Gen Xers, he was the suavest of Bonds, with a way with the ladies and an air of cool even when presented with hugely dangerous situations.
Here are all seven ofMoore’s Bond performances, ranked by USA TODAY’s
1FOR YOUR EYES ONLY ( 1981) Who else but Bond is going to get the call when a British ship is sunk and its nuclear missile command system goes missing? The secret agent’s Greek ally Aristotle Kristatos ( Julian Glover) is first a pal and later the movie’s primary big bad, trying to sell the important device to the Soviets, and Bond pairs withMelina Havelock ( Carole Bouquet), a lady out for revenge against her parents’ killer. Serious stuff abounds but it’s got some camp, too, like the bestMoore flicks: Bond flirts with an ice- skating prodigy ( Lynn- Holly Johnson), then is attacked in the rink by hockey goons and commandeers a Zamboni just in time.
2THE SPY WHO LOVED ME ( 1977) Bond and Jaws ( Richard Kiel) didn’t always see eye to eye— especially not when they’re trying to kill each other on a train in one ofMoore’s alltime best action scenes. Spy found Bond romancing Russian agent Anya Amasova ( Barbara Bach) on the pair’s mission to foil anarchist shipping tycoon Karl Stromberg ( Curd Jürgens), who has designs on making British and Russian submarines launch nukes that would take outMoscow and New York City.
3MOONRAKER ( 1979) Simple globetrotting wasn’t good enough for this picture: Moore went intergalactic as Bond teams with CIA agentHolly Goodhead ( Lois Chiles) after an American space shuttle is hijacked and evil industrialistHugo Drax ( Michael Lonsdale) plots to dispose of mankind and jump- start his own master race. No one looked as good in a spacesuit asMoore, and Bond teams with old foe Jaws ( Kiel) just in time to send Drax to his cosmic doom.
4THE MANWITH THE GOLDEN GUN ( 1974) This has a little bit of everything that’s great about Bond flicks: a superweapon powered by the heat of the sun; a notorious supervillain in Francisco Scaramanga ( Christopher Lee), the world’s most expensive assassin; and a superattractive Bond girl in Britt Ekland’s bikini- clad Mary Goodnight. Moore and Lee go head to head in a final duel set in a mirror- filled maze climax, with Hervé Villechaize behind the scenes as Scaramanga’s chief assistant.
5LIVE AND LET DIE ( 1973) Moore’s first 007 outing also is one that is very much influenced by the blaxploitation genre popular at the time: Bond is on the case when three fellow agents are killed and the Caribbean drug lord Kananga ( Yaphet Kotto) needs to be taken down before he enacts his plan to rule the world’s heroin trade. The good news ( aside from PaulMcCartney’s theme song): Moore gets a pair of high- profile Bond girls in GloriaHendry, the first AfricanAmerican love interest for the hero, and Jane Seymour, as ace tarotcard reader Solitaire.
6OCTOPUSSY ( 1983) In the grip of the ColdWar, Bond takes on Afghan prince Kamal Khan ( Louis Jourdan) and jewel smuggler Octopussy ( Maud Adams) as they hatch a plot to use a nuclear weapon and force Europe into a disarmament scenario, leaving it open for a Soviet invasion. Things get really crazy for Bond under the big top, as he takes on knife- throwing twins, disguises himself as a clown to escapeWest German police and has to disarm a bomb before it blows up a bunch of young circus lovers.
7A VIEW TO A KILL ( 1985)
One that’s definitely for theMTV crowd ( cue the Duran Duran title tune), the film sendsMoore’s 007 out in style by having him battle the super- powerful henchwomanMay Day ( Grace Jones) and foil the machinations of microchip mogulMax Zorin ( ChristopherWalken), who schemes to upend Silicon Valley. Bond skis down a mountain in the opening, taking out bad guys before a romantic rendezvous in an underground igloo, but ends the movie in the air, tussling with Zorin at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.